Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Blood Orange Cordial

Cordials may be a bit old fashioned but they are so simple to make in whatever flavour you desire. Having quenched a thirst for ginger and lemongrass I turned my attention towards to that fruit in season, blood oranges.

Apparently the fruit sizes are small this year making them less desirable to the supermarkets. With a very hot January, the trees went into a survival mode and the fruit stopped growing, but I can vouch on the quality of their flavour. Size certainly isn't everything!

These are all blood oranges but as you can see the internal colouring does vary - in the four that I used, two had that intense blood orange colouring and two had mild veining. This didn't stop me from getting a vibrant coloured juice.

To make the cordial, sugar and water is adding to the juice and the mixture is reduced in a simmer to concentrate the flavour and create this glistening jewelled drop...

Place the water, blood orange juice and sugar into a saucepan over medium heat and stir until the sugar dissolves. Simmer for 10 minutes until it is reduced by about a third. This should take about 10 minutes.

Cool in the pan before straining into a bottle. Store in the fridge.

I like to use fizzy mineral water in the ratio of roughly 1 part cordial to 2 parts water, though this really is up to your own personal taste. Adding the syrup to gin or vodka wouldn't go astray either.